I, too, think Roon’s decision is the correct one and looking forward to hearing what the interim solution which will allow existing devices to keep working is.
One thing I’d like to note though is this: Some of you are very quick to blame the manufacturer’s 100% for this and, while I’d like to do this as well, I’m simply not so sure - I’ll explain why below:
In my case one of my devices is uncertified. According to today’s information in this thread we have been told that Roon have been “chasing all the offending manufacturers for the past 1 or 2 years (depending on which thread you read”.
I have specifically asked (twice) in this forum whether my specific device is in process or not and never received acknowledgement of reply.
I have contacted the manufacturer of my device and got a response immediately telling me that an application for certification was made 18 months ago and they are still waiting.
Given the secrecy around which devices are in the pipeline and which are not I am not sure who to believe. I’d really appreciate your thoughts on this.
If an uncertified Roon Ready device has made itself seen by non-developers, they are a bad actor. There is no legitimate WIP outside their development teams. We do not allow public betas.
They are all “working” on it. But if uncertified devices make it into the hand of paying users, that partner is in violation of the terms of the license for using the RAAT SDK.
Exactly the situation I have. I specifically bough the Arcam AV40 (£4000) because it worked with Roon. Even though the Arcam firmware has been flaky, the one consistent aspect that worked was Roon!
Now it’s not going to work after any Arcam firmware updates as I understand it becasue I will not be able to reenble it in Roon as an end point. If this is the case I no longer have a use for Roon. As I only just renewed my subscription early this month, I’m pretty hacked off!
I’m a Chord customer and fan but IMHO they’ve dropped the ball on this one. If they’d put as much attention into the streaming products reliability as they do into maintaining their dealer network and price structure this might have gone better.
While Roon’s objectives are right, the “method” is very wrong. Providing customers with only 2 Weeks notice, and then providing a very weak grandfathering policy is effectively holding paying customers as hostage, to push manufacturers to complete certification.
Will it work? - Yes. But I, as a paying customer will have paid the biggest price and that is not cool.
I have only 2 Roon endpoints (both uncertified) and just paid $700 lifetime for Roon as it worked great with those endpoints. The thing is, the “only” reason I am a Roon customer is because it worked with my devices. I was promised Lifetime use, but now I won’t have “any” devices to use it with. NOT COOL
If Roon would have warned me that Uncertified devices would eventually be disabled, I would have made a different choice. And that is why Roon is getting the flak her and not the manufacturer’s
Also the method of grandfathering just creates more anxiety. My Arcam AV40 requires a system reset every few weeks to fix glitches/firmware updates. So that’s a dead horse now. The MiniDSP SHD is more stable, but still leads to a ton of anxiety!
Roon needs a better way to grandfather existing users - without having a sword hanging on our heads, and also provide more notice, to allow both customers and vendors to plan better
I found out after purchasing an OPPO 205 that it was a Roon Ready device and that is what led me to Roon.
Now, Roon is an indispensable part of my system, and I would only consider a player product worthy of my money if it is Roon Ready because that is specifically what I would be looking for.
For the maker of that device to advertise it as Roon Ready as a selling point and not actually be in compliance is a returnable offence in my opinion and I would not hesitate to do so.
I would think the folks that sell these “Roon Ready” devices should be aware of the situation and be prepared to take them back as defective if the device is not fully certified as advertised.
I’m curious, how many of the problem tickets/post added by frustrated users, that have to be addressed by Roon support, could be traced to this issue? Maybe none but it makes me wonder.
There are a handful of devices that people are pubically talking about already. We aren’t going to list them all, but we’ve shown you how to figure out if you are affected.
Where do I go to figure out if I’m affected? I have a Bryston BPA-3. Looking at the list of partners (with the apparently mockingly title “Roon plays with Everything”), I see Bryston under the list of Network Players (which this is not) but nowhere else. So if I ever have to reset Roon, or change cores I’m SOL?
That is a pretty black and white line, but that is your call on the legalities and the impact it has on your vendor partners and end users. I personally preferred the humility in the response of some who seem to be trying to partner to solve real world problems - you might want to be clearer to them that there is no such middle ground. They are just bad actors / rogue operators. What next - legal action against them for daring to mention you guys in a post? https://www.minidsp.com/forum/shd-series/17805-roon-stop-support-for-uncertified-devices?start=15#50632
This is just being silly… This is a post in calm tone from the miniDSP team trying to reassure their customers. Why would anyone think about legal action against that???
And please note that miniDSP is quite open about their goal of getting user feedback on a ‘Beta’ firmware release using Roon’s SDK, and Roon is clear about the fact that they don’t allow beta releases to be sold to users, and therefore miniDSP is in violation of the agreement with Roon.
I don’t know what your costings are but my affected endpoint and Roon Life subscription cost about the same give or take £50 in favour of the endpoint. It will be the endpoint that goes. I’ll sell it on and get something that actually delivers proper approved certification. I think Roon’s actions are unfortunate but necessary. And if 90% of manufacturers have managed to comply, I don’t really want to be a customer of the 10% that can’t or won’t.
Matrix Audio products?
I don’t see them in the partners matrix list, but also do not see the pink “uncertified” banner in my Element X settings.
It’s a USB DAC, which supposedly won’t be affected.
However, it’s also a network player that is advertised as “Roon Ready”, yet AFAIK hasn’t been certified yet. Meanwhile it seems to work at least as well with Roon as my Bluesound Node 2i (a Roon Ready network player that definitely is certified).
Is it perhaps already certified but the partner matrix list still needs updating?